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University   of  North  Carolina 

Endowed  by  the  Dialectic  and  Philan- 
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[Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings  or  the  N.  C.  Historical  Association,   1917.] 


The  Raising,  Organization,  and  Equipment  of  North 
Carolina  Troops  During  the  Civil  War 


By  Walter  Clark, 
Chief  Justice  of  North  Carolina  Supreme  Court. 


"When  Sir  Walter  Scott  issued  the  first  of  his  novels  in  1805  it  dealt 
with  the  war  of  1745,  the  last  attempt  of  the  Stuarts  to  regain  the  throne, 
and  he  entitled  it  "Waverley,  or  "lis  60  Years  Since."  It  is  almost  sixty 
years  since  our  great  struggle  began  in  1861,  and  it  would  be  far  easier 
for  a  great  writer  like  Scott  to  clothe  the  palpable  and  familiar  with  the 
glamor  of  romance  than  it  is  to  present  to  this  generation  an  accurate, 
lifelike  picture  of  the  supreme  effort  of  North  Carolina  in  1861-5. 

As  compared  with  the  great  world  struggle  now  in  progress  the  War 
of  1861-5  seems  small,  but  up  to  that  time  it  was  the  greatest  which  the 
world  had  known.  It  lasted  for  four  years,  and  the  Federals  first  and 
last  put  into  line  2,850,000  soldiers.  On  the  Southern  side  there  were 
between  six  hundred  and  eight  hundred  thousand.  The  exact  number 
cannot  be  settled,  for  our  records  have  been  largely  lost.  It  is  safe  to 
say  that  no  war  was  ever  entered  into  with  greater  unpreparedness  on 
both  sides.  When  the  South  went  in  she  had  no  government  but  had  to 
form  one.  It  had  not  a  soldier  but  had  to  call  out  an  army,  clothe,  arm, 
and  discipline  it.  It  had  no  treasury  and  not  a  dollar  to  put  in  it.  It 
was  without  factories  to  make  munitions  or  arms  and  without  adequate 
facilities  to  clothe  or  feed  the  troops,  for  we  had  relied  for  years  upon 
the  North  for  manufactured  articles  and  upon  the  Northwest  for  meat 
and  corn  and  flour. 

The  North  had  as  a  nucleus  a  small  army  and  a  navy,  an  organized 
government  and  a  treasury.  But  the  state  of  unpreparedness  on  both 
sides  was  beyond  description.  After  the  first  battle  of  Mannassas  the 
Confederate  Government  notified  the  Governor  of  this  State  that  there 
was  not  enough  powder  in  the  Confederacy  for  another  day's  battle. 
This  may  be  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  Confederates  did  not  pursue 
their  advantage  by  capturing  Washington.  So  little  aware  was  the 
North  of  the  magnitude  of  the  struggle  that  many  of  their  regiments 
then,  and  even  later,  were  "100  days  men,"  enlisted  for  that  period,  with 
the  impression  that  the  Rebellion  could  be  put  down  in  that  time,  and 
by  undrilled  men.  In  North  Carolina  the  first  regiment  we  sent  out, 
the  "Bethel  Regiment,"  of  glorious  memory,  commanded  by  Col.  (later 
Lieut.  General)  D.  H.  Hill,  was  enlisted  for  six  months,  and  the  rest  of 


our  regiments  for  twelve  months,  except  the  ten  State  regiments  which, 
with  a  foresight  not  shown  probably  by  any  other  Southern  State,  were 
enlisted  for  "three  years,  or  the  war."  These  regiments  were  officered 
by  appointment  of  the  Governor,  while  the  others,  which  were  volunteer 
regiments,  elected  their  own  officers. 

The  condition  of  things  in  the  spring  of  1861  would  be  hard  to  de- 
scribe. Though  South  Carolina  seceded  on  20  December,  and  other 
Southern  States  followed  in  January  and  February,  and  the  new  hostile 
government  inaugurated  its  president  at  Montgomery,  22  February, 
1861,  General  Lee  accepted  promotion  from  the  Federal  Government  in 
the  latter  part  of  March,  and  did  not  resign  till  after  Virginia  seceded 
on  23  April.  In  the  meantime  hostilities  had  been  begun  by  the  attack 
on  Fort  Sumter  on  12  April,  and  prior  to  that  time  the  Star  of  the  West 
had  been  fired  on  in  an  attempt  to  enter  Charleston  harbor.  Indeed 
there  were  officers  afterwards  prominent  in  the  Confederate  Army  who 
did  not  leave  the  United  States  service  till  May.  General  Martin,  after- 
wards so  conspicuous  in  organizing  men  and  material  for  North  Caro- 
lina, did  not  resign  from  the  United  States  Army  till  our  Ordinance  of 
Secession  was  enacted,  20  May.  And  on  his  way  home  from  his  distant 
post  in  Kansas  he  met  on  the  train  his  old  army  friend,  U.  S.  Grant, 
and  traveled  amicably  with  him  through  Illinois  and  Indiana  to  Cincin- 
nati, Ohio. 

The  utter  inability  of  the  people  of  both  sections  to  understand  the 
magnitude  and  duration  of  the  struggle  before  them,  added  to  the  utter 
lack  of  preparedness  on  both  sides,  is  shown  by  a  common  saying  by 
speakers  on  both  sides  in  raising  volunteers,  that  they  would  "contract 
to  wipe  up  all  the  blood  that  would  be  spilled  with  a  silk  pocket  handker- 
chief." This  was  true  of  the  Confederate  Government,  which  persistently 
refused,  in  the  summer  of  1861,  to  negotiate  a  loan  of  six  hundred  mil- 
lions of  dollars  which  was  tendered  by  capitalists  in  Europe,  and  Presi- 
dent Davis  gave  positive  instructions  that  in  no  event  should  more  than 
$15,000,000  be  accepted.  If  the  loan  had  been  taken,  of  the  magnitude 
offered,  the  Confederacy  would  early  have  been  supplied  with  ammuni- 
tion, arms,  provisions,  and  a  navy,  and  the  blockade  later,  to  which  we 
owed  our  defeat,  would  have  been  impossible.  It  is  quite  clear  that  it 
was  the  failure  of  the  Confederate  officials  to  take  this  step  of  prepared- 
ness, even  at  that  late  date,  which  rendered  vain  the  valor  of  our  troops 
and  the  genius  of  our  generals.  Indeed,  aside  from  the  preparedness 
which  we  could  even  then  have  made,  the  European  governments  would 
have  intervened,  if  necessary,  to  have  preserved  the  investment  of  their 
capitalists  in  the  $600,000,000  loan  which  would  have  been  taken  if 
secured  on  cotton. 


There  can  hardly  be  an  incident  in  history  of  equal  want  of  prepared- 
ness except  in  our  War  of  1812,  when  a  force  of  4,000  British  soldiers, 
returning  from  the  West  Indies,  landed  at  Point  Lookout  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Potomac,  2,500  of  whom  defeated  the  American  Volunteers  at 
Bladenboro,  when  President  Madison  (a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence)  and  the  Secretary  of  War,  Monroe  (a  soldier  of  the 
Revolution),  were  present.  It  is  said  that  250  men  of  the  British  army 
composed  the  force  that  captured  Washington,  burned  the  Capitol  and 
the  White  House  and  destroyed  public  property,  and  that  our  Capital 
City  was  held  that  night  by  one  single  British  soldier  as  a  sentry  on 
Capitol  Hill. 

In  North  Carolina,  though  we  did  not  secede  till  20  May,  the  Legis- 
lature which  met  1  May  provided  for  the  raising  of  ten  regiments  "for 
three  years,  or  the  war,"  for  the  raising  of  volunteers  and  organization 
for  the  coming  struggle.  In  a  short  time  General  Martin  was  made 
Adjutant  General,  Major  John  Devereux,  Quartermaster,  and  Major 
Thomas  D.  Hogg,  Commissary.  At  once  steps  were  taken  to  procure 
supplies.  Horses  for  the  cavalry  and  transport  service  were  brought 
from  Kentucky,  which  was  then  still  neutral  ground,  and  were  hurried 
in  droves  through  the  mountains.  Saddles  and  harness  material  were 
secured  by  special  agents  in  New  Orleans  and  rushed  to  Raleigh  by  rail. 
Powder  works  and  arsenals  for  the  manufacture  and  remodeling  of  arms 
were  created.  Thirty-seven  thousand  muskets  were  taken  possession  of 
by  the  State  in  the  capture  of  the  arsenal  at  Fayetteville.  These  were 
mostly  flint  and  steel,  and  skilled  workmen  were  secured  to  turn  them 
into  percussion  weapons,  but  even  then  so  scarce  was  the  supply  of  guns 
that  we  manufactured  a  large  number  of  pikes,  which  were  wooden  poles 
shod  at  one  end  with  iron  (samples  of  which  can  be  seen  in  your  His- 
torical Museum),  and  with  these  some  organizations  were  equipped  while 
others  were  entirely  unarmed.  Indeed,  it  was  not  until  after  several 
victories  that,  by  the  capture  of  arms  and  munitions,  especially  by  the 
careful  gathering  up  of  the  arms  thrown  away  by  the  Northern  troops 
in  flight,  we  were  able  adequately  to  equip  our  soldiers.  In  fact,  it  was 
not  until  after  the  "Seven  Days  Battles  Around  Richmond,"  in  June 
and  July,  1862,  that,  by  means  of  the  large  captures  of  guns  and  cannon, 
the  South  was  at  all  able  to  adequately  equip  its  soldiers.  During  the 
entire  war  a  large  part  of  our  equipment  of  arms  and  munitions  con- 
sisted of  those  taken  from  the  enemy. 

In  May,  1861,  the  State  established  camps  of  instruction  at  various 
points,  and  skilled  armorers  were  gradually  educated,  by  the  aid  of  the 
few  we  had,  to  make  sabres,  bayonets,  and  swords.  For  a  long  while 
percussion  caps  were  made  by  a  private  firm   (Kuester)    in  Raleigh. 


Shoes  and  clothing  factories  were  located  at  several  points  in  the  State. 
Quartermaster,  commissary,  and  ordnance  stores  were  collected,  and 
cannon  were  provided  for  the  artillery  largely  by  melting  down  the 
church  bells,  which  source  of  supply  was  supplemented  from  time  to  time 
by  captures  from  the  enemy. 

The  energy  and  ability  shown  by  North  Carolina  in  these  preparations 
were  very  remarkable,  and  showed  the  innate  ability  of  our  population. 

The  most  remarkable  instance  in  this  line  was  the  purchase  by  the 
State  in  1862  of  the  Ad-Vance  and  three  other  vessels  and  the  sending  by 
this  State  of  Mr.  John  White  of  Warrenton  and  Col.  Duncan  K.  McRae 
to  sell  cotton  and  purchase  supplies  for  our  soldiers.  No  other  State 
did  this,  nor  did  the  Confederate  Government.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
the  State  could  either  have  clothed  or  fed  its  people  but  for  this  enter- 
prise. The  list  of  importations  is  a  curious  one  and  reflects  the  needs 
of  the  State.  From  the  records  now  being  compiled  by  Dr.  D.  H.  Hill 
we  find  that  ordnance  stores  to  the  amount  of  $488,000  and  cotton  cards 
to  the  value  of  $594,000  was  brought  into  Wilmington.  It  was  through 
these  cotton  and  wool  cards  that  the  women  of  the  State  were  able  to 
clothe  their  families  during  the  last  two  years  of  the  war.  Even  the 
tacks  with  which  these  cards  were  fastened  to  the  wooden  handles  had 
to  be  imported  with  them.  Among  the  importations  were  cloth  for  uni- 
forms, overcoats,  jackets,  trousers,  caps,  shoes,  boots,  sacks,  angora  skirts, 
oil  cloth,  oil,  tape,  thread,  buttons,  paper,  calf  skins,  leather,  medicines, 
dyes,  belting,  cobbler's  awls,  needles,  bleaching  powders,  buckles,  scythe 
blades,  iron,  copper,  wire,  nails,  and  many  other  articles. 

Most  of  the  imported  cloth  was  manufactured  into  uniforms  for  the 
men  or  sold  to  the  officers.  This  work  was  done  in  a  most  systematic 
manner.  The  manufacturing  establishment  at  Raleigh  was  presided 
over  by  Capt.  J.  W.  Garrett,  and  afterwards  by  Major  W.  W.  Pierce 
and  Major  H.  A.  Dowd.  It  was  in  the  Quartermaster's  Department,  of 
which  Major  John  Devereux  had  general  supervision.  The  clothing 
was  cut  by  expert  tailors  and  then  given  out  to  women  to  be  made  into 
garments.  Some  of  the  material  was  shipped  to  various  towns  in  the 
State  and  made  up  by  clubs  of  women  and  shipped  back.  Blockade 
running  was  not  only  an  absolute  necessity  to  the  State  but  was  a  success 
financially,  for  on  9  March,  1865,  near  the  end  of  the  war,  the  business 
showed  a  profit  of  $1,325,000.  This  was  largely  made  of  course  by  the 
difference  between  the  price  paid  by  the  State  for  cotton  and  the  value 
of  the  articles  brought  back  by  the  steamers  on  their  return  voyages  to 
the  State.  The  steamers  ran  the  blockade  from  Wilmington  nearly  due 
south  to  Nassau,  in  the  Bahamas,  to  which  point  the  supplies  were 
brought  without  risk  from  England  and  stored. 


Not  only  were  the  North  Carolina  troops  supplied  with  uniforms  hut 
a  very  large  part  of  the  cloth  and  the  uniforms  were  sold  to  the  Con- 
federate Government.  When  Longstreet's  corps  were  sent  to  the  west, 
where  it  enabled  the  army  to  win  the  victory  at  Chicamauga,  it  was 
furnished  with  new  clothing  almost  entirely  from  North  Carolina,  both 
for  the  men  and  officers. 

The  greater  portion  of  the  medical  supplies  for  the  Southern  army 
was  thus  brought  in  by  the  North  Carolina  blockading  steamers,  and 
was  unobtainable  otherwise. 

Major  T.  D.  Hogg,  who  was  head  of  the  Ordnance  Department  and 
later  of  the  Commissary  Department  of  the  State,  kept  on  hand,  as  he 
said,  "Everything  from  frying  pans  to  cannon,"  and  the  department 
supplied  every  conceivable  article  to  the  army.  In  the  Ordnance  Depart- 
ment the  State  was  constantly  manufacturing  or  remodeling  arms  and 
repairing  and  putting  into  condition  those  captured  from  time  to  time 
from  the  enemy  or  picked  up  on  the  battle-field.  Nitre  for  gunpowder 
was  obtained  mostly  by  digging  up  the  ground  in  the  smokehouses 
throughout  the  State  and  leaching  out  the  nitre. 

The  State  contracted  with  the  Confederate  Government  to  make  all 
the  clothing  for  the  North  Carolina  troops  after  they  were  turned  over 
to  the  Confederacy.  During  the  first  winter  of  1861-1862  there  was  so 
large  a  rush  of  men  to  arms  that  the  soldiers  suffered  considerably  from 
cold.  So  great  was  the  destitution  that  the  women  of  the  State,  as 
patriotic  then  as  now,  took  up  the  carpets  from  their  floors,  cut  them  up 
and  lined  them  with  coarse  cloth  and  sent  them  on  to  the  troops  to  use  as 
blankets.  Agents  were  sent  as  far  South  as  New  Orleans,  and  these  also 
scoured  the  State,  to  buy  blankets  and  warm  clothes  for  the  North  Caro- 
lina troops. 

Not  only  did  the  State  make  clothing  but  it  went  into  the  manufacture 
of  arms,  and  at  the  Fayetteville  arsenal  thousands  of  good  rifles  were 
made.  Later,  rifle  factories  were  established  as  private  enterprises  at 
Jamestown,  Greensboro,  and  other  points,  and  a  firm  in  Wilmington 
made  sabres  and  bayonets.  A  boring  machine  was  devised  by  which 
smooth-bore  muskets  were  turned  into  rifles,  and  thousands  of  antiquated 
muskets  were  changed  from  flint  and  steel  to  percussion  locks. 

The  State  also  arranged  with  manufacturers  at  many  points  in  this 
State  "to  go  into  the  manufacture  of  shoes.  To  some  of  these  the  State 
furnished  the  hides,  and  in  many  cases  the  State  bought  green  hides  and 
had  them  tanned  on  shares.  Agents  were  sent  into  all  the  western 
counties  to  buy  hides,  leather,  and  wool.  These  were  collected  and  hauled 
to  the  manufacturers,  to  a  very  large  amount  in  wagons,  or  accumulated 
in  warehouses,  for  it  must  be  remembered  at  that  time  we  had  not  more 
than  a  third  of  our  present  railroad  mileage. 


To  keep  on  hand  a  large  supply  of  cotton  goods,  the  State  agreed  to 
take  the  total  output  of  many  of  the  cotton  mills  and  pay  them  75  per 
cent  profit.  The  lack  of  clothing  among  the  people  at  home  became  so 
severe  that  certain  days  were  set  apart  on  which  the  output  of  the  mills 
might  be  sold,  and  on  those  days  large  numbers  of  women  came  from  all 
quarters  to  buy  the  cotton  yarns  or  cloth.  In  some  cases  they  walked 
even  ten  or  twelve  miles  and  carried  their  yarn  and  cloth  home  on  their 
backs,  and  sometimes  in  carts  or  wagons. 

Time  fails  me  to  go  into  all  the  various  enterprises  which  the  State 
inaugurated  to  support  its  armies  in  the  field.  Details  are  largely  given 
by  Major  A.  Gordon  and  Major  W.  A.  Graham  of  the  Adjutant  General's 
Department  in  the  First  Volume  of  the  "N".  C.  Regimental  Histories." 
A  committee  was  appointed  in  1867  to  ascertain  the  amount  expended  by 
this  State  in  aid  of  the  war,  composed  of  J.  C.  Harper,  R.  H.  Battle, 
and  H.  W.  Husted,  whose  report  shows  that  the  State  expended  for  mili- 
tary purposes  alone,  to  carry  on  the  war  (leaving  out  the  last  three 
months,  for  which  the  records  were  lost),  more  than  $37,000,000.  While 
part  of  this  was  in  Confederate  currency  it  is  fair  to  estimate  that  full 
$20,000,000  was  furnished  by  this  State  for  that  purpose.  This  was 
exclusive  of  the  amounts  which  were  spent  by  the  several  counties  for 
the  relief  of  the  widows,  wives,  and  children  of  the  soldiers  and  to  relieve 
distress  among  the  old  and  infirm.  The  State  established  salt  works  on 
the  coast  and  also  took  part  in  the  manufacture  of  salt  at  Saltville,  in 
Southwest  Virginia.  By  this  means  it  kept  the  State,  and  especially  the 
country  districts,  supplied  with  that  indispensable  article. 

In  addition  to  these  expenditures  the  State  used  a  large  sum  in  the 
blockade  business.  In  that  business  the  State  imported  $5,947,000  of 
goods,  in  addition  to  the  cost  of  the  steamer  Ad.  Vance  and  our  three 
other  vessels,  the  Don,  the  Hansa,  and  the  Annie. 

These  various  enterprises  were  largely  suggested  by  and  due  to  the 
energy  of  Gen.  James  G.  Martin,  who  had  seen  service  in  the  Quarter- 
master's Department  of  the  United  States  Army,  but  he  was  most  ably 
seconded  by  Major  John  Devereux,  Major  T.  D.  Hogg,  and  the  other 
officials  under  him.  Governor  Vance,  being  the  Governor  of  the  State 
at  that  time,  assumed  the  responsibility  for  the  Ad.  Vance  and  the  entire 
system  by  which  the  State  imported  these  necessary  articles,  and  he  did 
so  against  the  advice  of  eminent  counsel  who  assured  him  that  such  action 
would  make  him  liable  for  impeachment.  He  reaped  his  reward  in  the 
approval  of  the  soldiery,  whom  he  kept  warm  and  supplied  with  clothing, 
food,  and  other  necessaries,  and  in  the  remembrance  of  the  people  at 
home  whom  he  supplied  with  salt  and  other  necessary  articles,  and  he 
won  the  lasting  gratitude  of  the  women  to  whom  he  furnished  the  cotton 


cards  which  enabled  them  to  clothe  themselves  and  children,  and  this 
made  him  after  the  war  invincible  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  North 
Carolina. 

The  "blockade-running"  enterprise  of  this  State  was  not  adopted  by 
any  other  Southern  State  nor,  strange  to  say,  by  the  Confederate  Govern- 
ment, to  whom  the  State  turned  over  a  large  part  of  the  supplies  it 
received  by  these  methods.  "When  the  war  ended  North  Carolina  still 
had  on  hand  here  and  in  London  many  thousand  bales  of  cotton  which 
it  had  bought  for  this  trade  and  the  largest  supply  of  English  cloth  for 
soldiers  and  officers,  which  were  stored  at  Greensboro.  The  enterprise 
was  successful  till  September,  1864,  when  the  Confederate  Government, 
having  taken  for  a  cruiser  the  supply  of  anthracite  coal  brought  from 
England  which  the  Ad.  Vance*  had  stored  up  in  Wilmington  for  her  own 
use,  she  was  forced  to  use  the  bituminous  and  inferior  coal  from  Chat- 
ham County,  and  the  black  trail  of  smoke  that  she  made  and  a  lowered 
speed  caused  her  capture. 

As  to  provisions,  so  large  a  part  of  Virginia  was  occupied  by  the  enemy 
and  the  other  Southern  States  being  less  fitted  for  raising  corn  and 
farther  from  Lee's  army,  more  than  half  of  the  supplies  of  that  army 
came  from  North  Carolina.  Major  Hogg,  the  Commissary  of  this  State, 
said  that  in  the  spring  of  1865  North  Carolina  was  feeding  more  than 
half  of  Lee's  army. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  taxes  of  the  Confederacy  were  largely 
levied  in  kind  by  the  tithing  bureau  which  received  from  each  farm  one- 
tenth  of  all  the  meat,  corn,  and  other  provisions  raised  which  were  put 
into  the  tithing  warehouses  and  thence  transported  to  the  army  from 
time  to  time  as  needed.  There  were  tithing  agents  in  each  neighborhood 
who  saw  to  it  that  the  farmer  turned  over  to  the  Government  one-tenth 
of  his  produce,  and  over  him  was  a  tithing  agent  in  each  county.  In  a 
time  of  depreciated  currency,  and  of  an  imperative  demand  for  pro- 
visions by  the  army,  no  better  system  probably  could  have  been  devised. 

The  Confederate  conscript  law  was  adopted  early  in  1862  by  which 
all  men  between  18  and  35  were  taken  for  the  army,  with  certain  exemp- 
tions, on  account  of  disability  and  public  service.  The  age  later  was 
changed  from  18  to  45.  In  the  spring  of  1864  the  necessity  of  filling 
the  ranks  was  such  that  boys  from  17  to  18  were  conscripted  and  formed 
into  regiments  and  battalions  of  Junior  Reserves,  and  those  from  45  to 
50  were  likewise  formed  into  Senior  Reserves. 

Nor  should  mention  be  omitted  of  the  large  supplies  which  were  sent 
by  the  women  of  the  State  from  their  scanty  stores  to  their  relatives  in 


*Note. — This  name  was  a  triple  pun.  The  vessel  was  primarily  named  Ad.  Vance,  in  honor  of 
Governor  Vance's  wife,  Mrs.  Adelaide  Vance,  and  Ad-Vance,  i.  e.,  "to-Vance,"  and  the  "Advance"  or 
first — never  A.  D.  Vance. 


the  army.  During  the  last  three  months  of  18  64,  as  Pollard's  History 
states,  $325,000  worth  of  supplies  passed  through  the  office  in  Bichmond 
sent  by  the  women  of  this  State  direct  to  our  soldiers  in  our  time  of 
greatest  destitution,  in  addition  to  what  the  State  Government  was- 
officially  sending  to  the  troops. 

Throughout  the  war  it  was  noted,  without  contradiction,  that  the  best 
supplied,  best  clothed  and  equipped  soldiers  of  the  whole  army  were  from 
JSTorth  Carolina. 

I  cannot  undertake  in  the  brief  space  of  this  article  to  narrate  what 
would  require  a  volume,  in  order  to  set  out  adequately  the  support  which 
Worth  Carolina  furnished  to  the  Confederacy.  It  must  be  recalled  that 
while  now  the  State  has  2,500,000  people,  by  the  census  of  1860  she  had 
only  992,622,  of  whom  full  one-third  were  negroes.  These  latter  did 
their  share  in  faithfully  furnishing  provisions  raised  on  the  farms  for  the 
support  of  the  soldiers  and  of  the  people  at  home.  To  their  credit  there 
was  not  a  single  attempt,  recorded  in  the  four  years,  of  insurrection  or 
lawlessness.  Out  of  the  700,000  white  population  the  State  sent  125,000 
splendid  soldiers  to  the  front  besides  the  Home  Guards,  who  preserved 
order,  guarded  bridges,  and  at  times  strengthened  our  lines  in  ISTorth 
Carolina.  Many  thousand  negroes  were  also  drafted  from  time  to  time 
to  build  breastworks  and  forts. 

The  proportion  of  soldiers  furnished  by  this  State  to  the  Confederate 
cause  was  nearly  one  in  every  five  of  the  total  white  population.  This  is  a 
larger  ratio  than  is  now  being  furnished  by  Germany  in  her  strenuous 
efforts,  though  that  country  is  largely  aided  by  the  enforced  work  of 
prisoners  and  of  the  population  drafted  from  Belgium  and  other  occu- 
pied territory,  contrary  to  all  the  rules  of  civilized  warfare  and  the 
express  stipulations  of  the  Hague  treaties.     . 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  of  the  armies  of  the  thirteen  Confederate  States, 
more  than  one-sixth  were  soldiers  from  this  State.  This  State  also  fur- 
nished fully  one-fifth  of  the  provisions  and  other  supplies  for  the  Con- 
federate armies. 

Unlike  Germany,  with  its  thirty  years  preparations  for  war,  North 
Carolina  went  into  the  war  totally  unprepared.  But  she  grappled  the 
task  which  came  to  her,  and  no  state  on  either  side,  and  probably  no 
state  in  history,  furnished  from  its  population  a  larger  proportion  of 
soldiers,  nor  from  its  material  resources  a  larger  support,  to  the  cause 
in  which  it  embarked  than  this  Commonwealth.  If  the  cause  finally 
failed,  no  blame  can  be  laid  upon  a  state  which  went  into  that  war 
reluctantly  but  which,  when  it  once  entered,  stinted  neither  in  men,  in 
courage,  or  in  supplies  in  its  ardent  support  to  the  side  which  its  people 
had  espoused. 


PhotomtfUnt 

Pamphlet 

Binder 

Gaylord  Bros. 

Makers 
Syracuse,  N.  Y. 

PAT.  JAN  21,  t9dl 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00032733267 

FOR  USE  ONLY  IN 
THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLECTION 


